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Album review
Gotan project
Inspiración - Espiración
Paris
01/10/2004 -
The combination of French DJ Philippe Cohen Solal, Swiss musician Christoph H. Müller and Argentinean bandoneon-player Eduardo Makaroff makes for a powerful mix. The trio's original electro fusion sound, created in the final years of the 20th century, prefigured an entire new genre that would dominate the beginning of the next Millennium. Mining the rich vein of Argentinean tradition, Gotan Project sought inspiration in tango, inventing a new form of electro hybrid which was to take the world by storm. But at the time of their first productions, neither they - nor anyone else - could have imagined what the future held in store. The group pressed just 1,000 copies of their first maxi single, Vuelvo al Sur (inspired by Argentinean accordion star Astor Piazzolla's track of the same name). Since then, of course, Vuelvo al Sur has enjoyed mega-success, gaining extensive airplay and being used as background music in numerous documentaries, not to mention a TV ad. As for sales of the group's debut album, La Revancha del Tango, international sales have now topped the 850,000 mark.
The Magic KeyCohen Solal, Müller and Makaroff have been busy in the studio of late, working on a follow-up to La Revancha del Tango (due out some time in September 2005). But while preparations for the second album were underway, Cohen Solal, the DJ/producer member of the trio, came up with the idea of creating a DJ set. And thus Inspiración Espiración was born. "It's definitely not a Gotan album," Cohen Solal insists from the start of our interview, "It's a personal project I embarked upon with Christoph and Eduardo's blessing. Inspiración Espiración is a way of presenting our sources of inspiration as well as sharing our current musical environment. That's something we can get across through the remixes and other bits of previously unreleased material. If you like, the album's a sort of summing up of Gotan Project to date. It's a key to our work which can be used by people who appreciate our music but don't actually know very much about our musical universe. Personally, I love it when I'm reading a good book and the author quotes other literature or makes musical references. That way you can follow things up and see what it's all about. Basically, I was sort of trying to do the same thing on Inspiración Espiración."
Cohen Solal reveals that he discovered tango at the age of 18, listening to the Astor Piazzolla albums he found lying around his girlfriend's parents' place. He has been a passionate fan ever since. But his DJ set Inspiración Espiración throws its musical net a lot wider. "Inspiración Espiración works on more than one level," he explains, "It revolves around the principle of the bandoneon, but also around the principle of life. And in that it's totally symptomatic of our musical approach." Cohen Solal then proceeds to launch into a detailed account of what the album has to offer. "There's tango, of course, ranging from Astor Piazzolla's Cité Tango to Domingo Cura's Percussion which is a seminal track for us. And there's Tres Y Dos, a hit from the 40s by Anibal Troilo. But listeners are also treated to hip-hop (with a remix of El Capitalismo Foraneo by Antipop Consortium and New York star Al-Shid's remix of M.A.T.H.), techno (with Peter Kruder's remix of Triptico and Pepe Bradock's version of Santa Maria) and even 'alternative country' thanks to Calexico's new spin on La Del Ruso."
Cohen Solal has also given his own remix skills a whirl on Chet Baker's jazz classic Round around Midnight. "Chet Baker and tango may sound a bit strange in theory," he laughs, "but I have to say we're pretty damn pleased with the result. I think we've really
This atmosphere is further added to by the album's evocative packaging. Avoiding postcard clichés of tango dandies clutching a red rose between their teeth, the cover of Inspiración Espiración uses a simple close-up of a couple of dancers, focusing not on their faces or legs, but on their chests. "Prisca Lobjoy was responsible for the whole graphic design side," says PCS, "She's worked alongside the group right from the start. It was Prisca who shot the video for Sentimentale, one of the bonus tracks on this DJ-set together with Cruz del Sur, a song that was originally meant to have been included on La Revancha del Tango, but we chucked it off at the last minute. We've reworked it since, though, and we play it at the end of our concerts now. Anyway, Prisca's fantastic. She's really understood and managed to capture the dimension of mystery that exists in our music. You'll see we've never sought to put ourselves before the music. We've never used a photo of ourselves on album covers or anything. The cover of our first album just showed an anonymous tattoo on a bit of skin. Even when we do a live show, we start out playing behind a veil so the audience can't see us. What's most important to us is the music. Tango's at the heart of everything we do."
Cohen Solal insists that music fans have not always completely understood the ramifications of tango. "It isn't a laidback, lounge kind of music, you know. The tango's fuelled by much more of a rebellious spirit, much more of a punk attitude than a lot of other music. Piazzolla really shook society up when he came along. In his way, he made as great an impact on the music scene as the Sex Pistols did in their day. Tango's the music of old cocaine-heads who didn't need any kind of body piercing to prove their marginality! It's a totally sensual music, like a speeded-up slice of life. A tango may only last a few minutes but in that short space of time an entire love story unfolds as the dancers approach one another, seduce one another and then make love. And, just like in real life, things don't always work out! The dancers' bodies don't always fit snugly into one another, but that's what makes it interesting. This almost trivial form of sensuality is what gives tango its force."
As the interview drew to a close, one nagging concern remained in our minds. What exactly is the state of play on Gotan Project's second album? "We spend every day working on it with the same team," laughs PCS, "And we've already come up with around fifteen basic structures for tracks. I think the release of the DJ-set will free us up a bit artistically, in fact, in the sense that it will allow us to push things further than we have done in the past. One thing's for sure, and that is that the second album's going to sound very different to the first. We don't listen to the same kind of music these days at all. I think the second album's going to be a bit less electro, but right now it's impossible for any of us to tell how things are going to work out. We just hope it will give people as much of a surprise as the first one did!"
Squaaly
Translation : Julie Street
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